


Indelible

by thedevilchicken



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Sex, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-16 02:19:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13626501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: The soulmark at the crook of Billy's arm reads:Goodnight Robichaux.





	Indelible

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sadlikeknives](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadlikeknives/gifts).



Not everyone he's met's had a soulmark.

Maybe one in ten people has one, maybe one in every twenty, maybe even less than that. He's never really made a scientific study of it so he can't exactly say for sure and besides that, some people out there cover them up, they keep them hidden even from themselves most of the time so it won't have a chance to interfere. He's seen men burn them off or cut them out - he guesses that's because they know some other people search, and some might lose themselves that way a little, now and then. Like Goody did in his misspent youth. 

These days he doesn't need to search, but he always used, everywhere he went, because it wasn't like his own mark made a lot of sense back then; it's all angular lines that don't mean a damn thing in any language he knows, and he knows more than one. So, he looked. He checked the people he slept with, checked the men he served with, checked the men he drank with 'cause they weren't always the same, surreptitious 'cause he did and didn't want to know. And hell, he sure didn't want any of them to know he wondered if they'd turn out to be his soulmate. Especially not the guys.

During the war, he searched every man he killed for his own name, dreading that he might actually find it on them. He never did, at least not on a dead man. And when he found it, the war was long since over. 

When the war was over, somehow all the soulmate bullshit seemed to matter just a little less because most nights he got so drunk that he could barely stand, never mind read the names he might see in passing on a person's skin. He drifted for months, place to place, town to town, sipping from his flask or from a glass in a bar till soulmarks didn't really mean a thing to him. But then he sat down to a hand of cards one night, some nameless place out west where he'd been before but never stayed for long, and forty minutes later he knew that things had changed. He was shaken. He guessed he'd needed to be shook.

A drunk with an attitude and an itchy trigger finger accused the foreign gent they were playing with of cheating. Loudly. His two buddies jumped right up onto that old bandwagon and Goody watched, impassive, as they held the guy in place and got out the knife. It was pretty clear what they had planned for him, not that Goody was sure he had a single damn left in him to give for that, but then they pulled up the man's sleeve and they held his hand down to the tabletop, and there it was. 

"Goodnight Robichaux," Goody blurted. The accuser, his fellas and the Eastern-looking gentleman all looked at him just like he was just some babbling drunk, which he guesses that he sometimes was and sometimes is, so he gestured vaguely at the man. 

"Goodnight Robichaux," he said again, and they all looked down where Goody was waving, all four of them at once, in time. The soulmark curved around over the inside of his bare left forearm, up by the bend of his elbow; it had fancy script, whimsical but still a nice, straightforward read, even at that angle. It was clear as day even in the dusty old saloon's dim lamplight. It made Goody's heart beat faster in his chest like it hadn't done in who even knew how long. There couldn't be two men in the world with a name like that, like _his_. He knew exactly what it meant. 

"How about you boys let him go?" he said. 

"How about you go straight to hell?"

"You really want to find yourselves on the bad side of a man like Goodnight Robichaux?"

The fella's two cronies looked a little alarmed at that idea, but their jackass leader smirked unpleasantly. 

"I bet the cheater wrote it there himself," he said. 

"Is that a chance that you boys want to take?"

"How's he gonna find out, anyway?"

Goody stood, his pistol already firmly in his hand. He wasn't totally sure how he managed to stand up at all, let alone hold his gun steady, but there it was.

"I found out already," he said, with a twist of a smile. "Folks around here know who I am even if you don't. I got a reputation follows me around. Why'd you think those seats weren't taken?"

They seemed to think about that for a moment, then they just let the guy go like nothing had even happened to begin with. They walked away, all scowls and wounded egos. Then Goody holstered his gun back up and he sat back down to cards. Frankly, he just wasn't sure what else to do; he talked a good game, but he knew his whole world had changed.

They played on for another hour, him and the guy whose hand he'd just saved and two locals who knew even Goodnight Robichaux couldn't shoot straight with that much liquor swirling in him. The guy kept his sleeve rolled up just past his elbow and now and then Goody's eyes strayed down, to his own name written out there on his skin. And when they finally quit, when Goody stood and straightened up his shirt and turned to head upstairs to his rented room with a sway to his steps that was more than he liked, he knew that he was being followed. He didn't wonder who it was. He didn't try to shake him. 

He opened the door. A hand caught his arm. The man with his name on him pushed him inside, pushed his back up to the wall. 

"Is this you?" he asked, the English accented but clear, with his hand pushing his sleeve back up again. 

"That's me," Goody replied, though his tongue felt thick as he said the words. "Goodnight Robichaux. Pleased to meet you. You're wearing my name."

"Prove it." He stepped back. He gestured. "Show me yours."

He thought about drawing his gun from its worn old holster at his hip, but he couldn't have killed him then even if he'd felt inclined to try. He thought about shoving him back out through the door, or grabbing his belongings and leaving the room himself, but he didn't even think he really wanted to and frankly, he had no place else to go. He just took off his jacket and he tossed it over the rickety old wooden chair that sat nearby. He took off his hat and his neckerchief and he unbuttoned his waistcoat with his fumbling drunk fingers, he untucked his shirt, and eventually, eventually, he tossed it aside. 

"Is this you?" he said, as he held out his arm, and the man took his left wrist in both hands. He ran his fingertips over the lines at the crook of Goody's arm. Goody shivered. He was warm. His fingertips were rough. 

"I don't know," he replied. 

Goody frowned. "You don't know?" he asked.

"I don't read this."

"Not even your own damn name?"

"I don't know my real name." He let go of Goody's arm. He smiled at him wryly. "I guess I hoped it would just say _Billy Rocks_."

Goody laughed out loud and he asked him to stay because what the hell else was he meant to do, all things considered? This wasn't the fairytale he'd always liked to imagine it might be, after all. So they slept there in the same bed, too hot and too close, and in the morning Goody traced the letters that made up his own name on Billy Rocks's arm. His insides flip-flopped like some music hall act while he pressed his mouth to Billy's warm skin. Then Billy pushed him down and he straddled his hips, all his long hair unpinned and shaken loose, and Goody tangled his fingers right up in it just because he could. Billy kissed him. And once they'd stripped each other bare and stretched out skin on skin, he was sure. He was almost sure. Almost. 

"You cheated," Goody said, his hands at Billy's bare hips. 

Billy smiled. "Of course," he replied. "But next time I won't get caught." 

Goody guessed he couldn't say fairer than that. But he thought maybe Billy could use a little help.

They've spent years together now, here and there and all around, putting on a show and trading on Goodnight Robichaux's famous, infamous fucking name. They sleep side by side under scratchy blankets and under threadbare sheets and Billy doesn't mind if Goody's just too drunk to fuck sometimes. He helps him out of his boots and into bed and when he falls asleep, Billy's hand's there on his skin, at his arm. He drifts off drunk and sometimes he manages not to dream the dreams.

But tonight, he's more lucid than most nights. That happens once in a while.

He kneels on the bed between Billy's thighs and his hand shakes when he slicks his cock, but that's not from the whiskey he's been drinking. He puts the tip to Billy's hole and Billy's watching him, dark-eyed and flushed, his fingers pulling at the headboard; when Goody slowly pushes in, when he opens him, fills him, settles deep inside of him, he can see his name on Billy's arm. It's never faded, not like they say some soulmarks do - it's only gotten darker over time, clearer, black like ink, like a perfect tattoo. 

He pushes in and Billy groans and so does Goody and even if his past won't let him be, he knows he's lucky. Not everyone he's met's had a soulmark. Even fewer ever find out whose name it is their soulmark spells, even if they can read and that for damn sure ain't for sure these days. Even if he doesn't know for sure what his own says, he knows what Billy's does. 

"I think this is me," Billy says, while Goody's moving in him, his palm resting hot over the mark that neither of them really understands. But it's the way that Billy signs his name now, like he's proud of it somehow, and like he's sure. 

"If I could choose who it is, I'd choose you," Goody says, his voice straining like his muscles are, and Billy's grip tightens at his arm because he knows that Goody means it. Six years ago, he had _Billy Rocks_ tattooed on his right arm like a handy translation to match the mark there on his left, both of them just as impossible to remove, both there to stay. He really chose him, for better or worse. He likes to think that means something, even for a guy like Goodnight Robichaux. 

When he comes, he comes in ragged bursts, his face all screwed up like it hurts because it does, because he's so far out of shape he's not sure how he's still alive except that Billy, the stubborn ass he is, just won't let him go. He pushes up to his knees, still in him, and he wraps one stiff hand around Billy's thick cock. He thumbs roughly at the head and Billy groans, and he tenses, and he bucks. He comes in pulses over Goody's hand. He takes a deep breath. He smiles up at him, faintly, like this means something, too.

After, they sit back against the headboard, so close that their bare shoulders touch, and they share a drink and a cigarette between them. Billy looks at him sideways, just from the corner of his eye, and he frowns and says, "You're watching me, Goody," but they both know he doesn't mind. He would never have stayed if he minded much. Goody wouldn't have let him, whether their marks match or not. 

The fact is, Goody doesn't need to know if the mark on his arm says Billy's name or not because he knows his own's on Billy. He just hopes that he lives up to that. He just knows he'll try.

And maybe he doesn't need to know what his mark says, but he hopes to God it's _Billy Rocks_.


End file.
